


Tattered Notebook

by niallslashharry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:21:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niallslashharry/pseuds/niallslashharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next time Niall saw Harry, the brunette was sitting under a bare tree in the local park with a green scarf wound around his neck and the same tattered notebook as before resting on his knees.</p><p>Niall paused in the middle of the path – his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie in hopes of warding off the November chill – and just stared. Harry looked absolutely, incredibly, mind-blowingly beautiful. His head was ducked, allowing the autumn sun to catch in his curls and spin strands of gold throughout the chocolate. The smooth skin of his cheeks were lightly flushed with the prettiest shade of pink Niall had ever seen and his green eyes were grinning when they glanced up and caught Niall’s gaze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tattered Notebook

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of weird, but oh well

The first time Niall saw Harry, the younger boy had ink stained hands and bloodshot eyes. He clutched a tattered notebook in his grasp and never once set it down, even as he struggled to rip open a packet of sugar with his teeth. Niall felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to help him and as he stepped forward to offer his assistance the packet split, littering the countertop with a white snow of sugar.

Niall hurried over with a damp cloth in hand, quickly wiping up the spilled sugar. The poor curly haired boy looked horrified by the mess he made and he kept apologizing profusely, his voice husky and molasses slow and just as delicious.

“It’s fine,” Niall assured him as he dropped the cloth into the front pocket of his brown apron. He offered the other boy a sunny smile, “Don’t worry about it.”

“At least I didn’t spill my coffee,” the boy pushed a stray curl out of his eye and nodded towards the steaming cup. “Thanks for your help. I’m Harry by the way.”

“Niall,” the blonde grinned. “Here, let me help you with that.” He reached over and tore open a sugar packet, handing it to the taller boy.

“Thank you,” Harry’s smile awoke a dimple in his cheek and Niall found himself left breathless by the beauty of the boy’s smile. “It was really nice to meet you,” Harry dumped the sugar in his coffee before scooping up the cup. The worn notebook remained tightly griped in his other hand. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.” With one last smile, Harry disappeared from the coffee shop.

But for the next week, he never once disappeared from Niall’s thoughts.

-

The next time Niall saw Harry, the brunette was sitting under a bare tree in the local park with a green scarf wound around his neck and the same tattered notebook as before resting on his knees.

Niall paused in the middle of the path – his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie in hopes of warding off the November chill – and just stared. Harry looked absolutely, incredibly, mind-blowingly beautiful. His head was ducked, allowing the autumn sun to catch in his curls and spin strands of gold throughout the chocolate. The smooth skin of his cheeks were lightly flushed with the prettiest shade of pink Niall had ever seen and his green eyes were grinning when they glanced up and caught Niall’s gaze.

  
Harry closed the notebook and dropped both it and his pen into the leather messenger bag resting at his side. Then he stood and hooked the bag over his shoulder as he made his way towards Niall.

“Hello Niall.” Harry smiled, “Told you I’d be seeing you around.”

“Hi Harry,” the older boy breathed, his voice lost in the dancing wind.

“Not working at the coffee shop today?”

“I was there earlier,” Niall rocked back on his heels and hoped he wasn’t blushing too hard as Harry started at him, face rapt with interest. “On my way home right now actually.”  
“Are you heading that way?” Harry pointed in the way Niall had been going. “If you are, I’ll walk with you. I live in that direction as well.”

Niall nodded and the two boys fell into step, walking silently as they made their way towards the edge of the park. They had just stepped onto the sidewalk when Harry spoke, “How are you liking England?”

“It’s not bad,” Niall huddled himself deeper into his hoodie, wishing he had brought a thicker jacket. He usually remembered to wear one, but had been in too much of a rush when he left that morning. Now he was suffering for his mistake.

“Well, the weather definitely is,” Harry laughed, then unwound his scarf from his neck. “Here, take this.”

“I’m fine,” Niall insisted. “Don’t worry about me.”

Harry didn’t listen and instead reached over to drape the scarf around Niall’s neck. “Seriously, I don’t mind,” Harry smiled softly. “It looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” Niall murmured, wrapping the scarf tighter around his neck. “It’s really warm.”

They continued on in silence and ten minutes later Harry stopped Niall with a light touch on his arm, “This is me. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Niall nodded and it wasn’t until Harry had vanished inside that he remembered he was still wearing the other boy’s scarf.

The blonde wore it every day for the rest of the week, just in case Harry showed up at the coffee shop to get it back.

He didn’t.

-

The third time Niall saw Harry, the blonde was browsing for books at the university library. Harry was tucked away between two back aisles, his notebook on the floor next to him and his eyes closed. Niall wanted to say hello, but he didn’t want to wake the other boy. So he wandered around the library for a few more minutes, then returned to where Harry had been sitting.

The brunette was up, his lips quirking up in a smile when he saw Niall. “Nice scarf,” Harry grinned, eyes sparking as he approached Niall.

“Oh yeah,” Niall unwrapped it from his neck and held it out, waiting for Harry to take it back.

“Keep it,” Harry turned and began to run his long fingers over the spines of the books. Niall noticed that his notebook was sticking out of his back pocket. He had a sudden urge to ask Harry what he wrote in it, but he thought that might be a bit personal.

Harry stopped suddenly, spinning to face Niall once again. “I think you should kiss me,” he breathed, his green eyes hopeful as he stepped towards the smaller boy. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Niall’s answer was more of a breath than a word, but Harry seemed to understand. He placed his large hands on Niall’s slim hips and waited for the blonde to push up on his toes and fit their lips together.

So that’s exactly what Niall did.

-

Niall wasn’t sure why he fell for Harry, or how he did.

All he knew was that it had happened. And he’d never been happier.

-

It was a year later when Harry slipped into their shared bed, the tattered notebook from their first three meetings in his hand. Niall hadn’t seen it in ages. He had wondered why Harry had stopped carrying it around, but never found the right time to ask.

Harry let out a cough and glanced at Niall, his green eyes dark with worry, “I have a confession to make.”

“What is it?” Niall snuggled into Harry’s side, dropping his head onto his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“When we first met, in the coffee shop and then in the park and at the library,” Harry’s eyes lowered to the old notebook. “It wasn’t exactly…” he paused, then let the notebook flip open, “fate. Neither was you falling in love with me.”

Niall scrunched his brow in confusion, eyeing the words that were scrawled across the pages in Harry’s messy script. He flipped through, noting that their first three meetings were written there, word for word. The last thing written, before the pages turned blank, was a single sentence.

Fall in love with me.

“You kept a journal about meeting me?” Niall lifted his head from its resting place so he could shoot Harry a smile. “That’s sweet.”

“It’s not a journal,” Harry grabbed a pen from the bedside table and flipped to a blank page. “Anything I write here will happen. Watch.”

He bent over the page, scribbling something quickly. Then he snapped the book shut and looked expectantly at Niall.

Niall just stared back, blinking his large blue eyes, before a voice in his head began whispering that he should kiss Harry as he had never kissed him before. So he made his move, straddling Harry’s waist and pressing his lips to Harry’s with everything that he had. He tangled his fingers in his boyfriend’s silky curls and whispered murmured I love you’s against his lips. Then he pulled back, climbed off Harry, and made himself comfortable on his side of the bed once again.

Harry looked at him, eyes still worried, then flipped open his notebook. Niall glanced down and saw a description written there, a description of the kiss Niall had just given Harry. A perfect description that had been written before Niall had even thought about connecting their lips.

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled, his eyes downcast as his voice broke. “Niall, I’m so sorry. I made you like me. I made myself spill the sugar and I wrote for you to help me clean it up. I wrote for you to not stop thinking of me. I made you wear a hoodie instead of a jacket that day in the park, so I could give you my scarf. I made you wander through the library until you found me. And I made you kiss me. I don’t know how, but I did.” Harry looked up, his face full of sorrow, “I’m so sorry. It’s just…I saw you in the coffee shop one day and I just loved you at first sight, but you didn’t even notice me. I kept going back, but you never even gave me a second glance. When I found the notebook and figured out what it did,” he shrugged lightly. “I couldn’t help myself. I was tired of not having you love me back.”

Niall picked up the notebook, flipping through the pages. Most were filled with unfamiliar handwriting that Niall assumed belonged to the people who had come before Harry.  
“I don’t understand,” Niall eyes met Harry’s. The brunette looked so upset, as if he was about to burst into tears at any moment. Niall placed his hand over Harry’s and interlocked their fingers before he turned back to the crumbling pages, “How does it work?”

“I don’t know,” Harry whispered. “I just know that it does.”

Niall gently closed the notebook, then tossed it to the floor and rolled onto Harry, pushing the other boy down and pinning him to the bed. Harry looked up at him with wide eyes, as if he were afraid of what Niall would do to him now that the blonde knew Harry had been dictating his actions.

“Harry, it doesn’t matter,” Niall leaned down and brushed a soft kiss across the other boy’s lips. “Seriously, I don’t care. It’s weird to think that you somehow were able to control what I was doing, but you didn’t make me do anything bad.” Niall ducked down for another kiss, allowing his lips to lingering this time as he whispered his next words into Harry’s mouth, “You made me fall in love with you.”

“And that’s by far the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”


End file.
